Paula K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Paula K., who was born in K?odawa, Poland in 1924. She recalls German invasion in 1939; German soldiers severely beating, then killing the rabbi and others; expulsion from their home; non-Jews providing food for her family; twenty months in a forced labor camp; being beaten by a guard; crocheting for civilian workers to earn extra food; a Polish woman who often assisted her; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; hiding injuries to avoid selection; an SS woman who gave her extra food; transfer to Czechoslovakia in late 1944; sabotaging their work in an airplane factory; and liberation by Soviet troops. Mrs. K. describes returning to K?odawa; a warm reception from her neighbors; marriage; fleeing to Berlin to escape antisemitic attacks; her daughters' births; and emigration to the United States in 1951. She discusses her reluctance to speak of her experience until a gathering of Holocaust survivors in Israel in 1981, and her subsequent efforts to educate children about the Holocaust as a memorial to her parents.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony is open with permission.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright has been transferred to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Use of this testimony requires permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- K., Paula, -- 1924-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Sabotage.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Forced labor.
- Postwar experiences.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Child survivors.
Places
- Poland.
- KĹodawa (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat